Algarve MP Cristovão Norte (PSD) has accused airport operator ANA of implementing “predatory measures” against small rent-a-car companies, which represent an “abuse of the operator’s dominant position”.
His stance came shortly after the Resident reported that small rent-a-car companies based at Faro Airport faced financial ruin over ANA’s plans to charge stiff “extra service fees” this season.
Under the new plan, companies would be required to pay €10-€17 every time they rent out a vehicle from the airports’ premises and €20-€24 in the case of shuttles.
According to Cristóvão Norte, this could lead to the closure of over 50 local car rental companies straight away.
“It almost seems as if the measure was planned to annihilate these companies and destroy any kind of competition,” he states in a press release.
The politician stresses that the damaging effect could find tourists arriving in the Algarve to find virtually no car rental companies to choose from.
Norte points out that the companies will have already signed contracts with clients and tour operators which involve prices that would now have to be increased to accommodate ANA’s new charges.
In other words, “they can either fulfil their contracts and face the risk of bankruptcy or raise prices. Either way it is not only the companies that will be affected; it is also the Algarve and its whole tourism sector!”
The MP will now be alerting the Competition Authority to act and prevent the measure from being put into force.
“This cannot be anything other than ANA’s bad-faith and intention to obtain rent out of the power of its monopoly,” he concludes in his release.
MP accuses airports authority of stalking car rental firms
